Human rights organization Witness will be responsible for ensuring content is balanced and has adequate context. Storyful will source and verify all of the channel's content.

"In the case of human rights, video plays a particularly important role in illuminating what occurs when governments and individuals in power abuse their positions," a YouTube blog post says, pointing toward the Arab Spring.

According to YouTube, 100,000 videos were uploaded during the height of the revolution in Egypt, representing a 70% increase over the previous three months. And Egypt's not the only example — we've seen YouTube content creation from protests in Syria, Russia and even Chicago.

Beyond protest footage, YouTube says the channel will highlight topics such as police brutality, discrimination, elder abuse, gender-based violence, issues of socio-economic justice, access to resources and bullying. Videos will also be curated from non-profit organizations working in the human rights space.

The channel launches with stories from the U.N. Observers in Syria, an anti-government hunger strike in Bahrain, clashes in Cambodia over land rights and Occupy Wall Street.

"We hope this project can not only be a catalyst to awareness, but offer people new avenues for action and impact," YouTube says. "The channel is committed to providing new citizen creators as well as viewers with the tools and information necessary so that every citizen can become a more effective human rights defender."

You can send video for review to the channel at witness@storyful.com, with information about the story you're watching unfold. The channel will be available on Google+, where YouTube hopes discussions of human rights will continue.

Is YouTube's Human Rights channel the future of activism? Let us know if you think this will become a destination for online organizing.

BONUS: 9 Social Media Uprisings That Sought to Change the World in 2011

Social Media Activism and Uprisings of 2011

1. Tunisian Revolution

A 26-year-old Tunisian vegetable vendor set himself on fire Dec. 17, 2010 after police stole produce from his stand. The suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, a college graduate unable to find work within his field of study, triggered a revolution in his home country that spread across the Arab world.

On Jan. 14, Ben Ali fled the Tunisia, seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia. His exit triggered similar movements across the region, from Western Sahara to Iran, the most noteworthy of which are highlighted on coming slides.

2. Egyptian Revolution

Though the social media-organized protests in Egypt were not as peaceful as the ones in Tunisia, they successfully led to the ousting of a dictator, Hosni Mubarak. The movement began on Jan. 25 (spurring popular Twitter hashtag #Jan25) and lasted until Feb. 11, when Mubarak finally agreed to step down.

3. Bahraini Uprising

Citizens filmed the funeral of a protester, uploading the footage to YouTube immediately. Despite efforts to overthrow the Sunni King in the mostly Shi'a country, the regime remains in tact.

4. Libyan Revolution

Protests in Libya began around Feb. 17. Authorities shut down the Internet a few days later, hoping to stop rebel forces from organized use of social media. Violence escalated as former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi launched a war against the rebel forces.

5. Syrian Uprising

Before protests began in Syria on Mar. 15, Facebook and YouTube had been blocked for several years. Three months after protesters began bloody clashes with police, authorities shut down the Internet to prevent organization and communication.

6. Vigilante Hackers

2011 has seen its fair share of noteworthy "vigilante" hacks, from groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec. Often hacking on behalf of freedom of information, these groups take down corporations and organizations that have provoked them, or whose practices conflict with their ideas of justice and social responsibility.

This new hacking vigilante trend shows a changing face of grassroots organization. While some activists mobile over public forums such as Facebook, others take an undercover digital approach to creating change.

7. London Riots

In the wake of the European economic crisis this summer, protesters clashed with police from Athens to Lisbon. Interestingly, London rioters did not use the same social tools for demonstration mobilization in August as their counterparts in the Middle East. London's protesters used BlackBerry Messenger to communicate, rather than Twitter or Facebook.

9. Occupy Wall Street

The latest in American activism -- targeting bankers more than governments -- began with a blog post in July. Protesters marched in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, beginning Sep. 17. While the #OccupyWallStreet (or #OWS) movement has spurred Occupy protests across the U.S., they all take issue with the growing inequity between the very wealthy (the 1%) and the working and middle classes (the 99%).

In keeping with their tech roots, some Occupy demonstrators attempted to create their own Internet to ensure constant connectivity.

Despite their serious ambitions, the protests have spurred a number of humorous Internet memes, including "The Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop," after a police officer at UC-Davis walked by a group of students and nonchalantly doused them in the eye-watering spray.

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